Féin did not treat the international debate on the freedom of the seas until after America’s entry into the First World War in April 1917. In keeping with its perpetually neutral stance, it argued that the significance of this concept to Ireland lay only in the possibility of opening up Irish ports to trade with the US after the war had ended.158 Meanwhile, the principal policy of the revamped Sinn Féin Party was to assert that America’s entry into the war should lead to the creation of a more benign and republican international order at whatever peace conference was held in the wake of the war. Indeed, a struggle for Irish independence was now launched that was based almost entirely on a claim that an American-inspired, post-war peace settlement should favour Irish claims to distinct representation at such a peace conference and, in turn, the establishment of Ireland as a distinct player in international relations alongside those new European governments that had come into existence as a result of the war, such as the republic of Finland and the kingdom of Poland.159 Reflecting this, the challenge of securing recognition of Ireland’s distinct nationality in international relations would be defined not by an attempt to fight the British army but rather by an attempt to mobilise international opinion in favour of an Irish demand for the complete evacuation of British armed forces on the grounds that British rule in Ireland had no democratic legitimacy. Ireland’s republican moment had now arrived.
Endnotes
1 Doris Edel, The Celtic West and Europe (Dublin, 2001); Michael Richter, Medieval Ireland (2nd ed., Dublin, 2005), 1–2 (quote).
2 J. DeCourcy Ireland, D.C. Sheehy (eds), Atlantic visions (Dun Laoghaire, 1989); Michael Richter, Medieval Ireland (2nd ed., Dublin, 2005), 8.
3 Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, A new history of Ireland, vol. 1 (Oxford, 2005), 18; Brendan Smith (ed.), Cambridge history of Ireland, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 2018), chapter 1.
4 Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, A new history of Ireland, vol. 1 (Oxford, 2005), 212–15.
5 John O’Donovan (ed.) Leabhar na gCeart or the Book of Rights (Dublin, 1847), 141–3, 155, 157, 159, 161, 169–73.
6 Doris Edel, The Celtic West and Europe (Dublin, 2001), chapters 4–6.
7 Elva Johnston, ‘A sailor on the seas of faith: the individual and the church in The Voyage of Máel Dúin’, in Judith Devlin, H.B. Clarke (ed.), European encounters (Dublin, 2003), 239–52; F.X. Martin, F.J. Byrne (eds), The scholar revolutionary: Eoin MacNeill (Dublin, 1973).
8 Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, A new history of Ireland, vol. 1 (Oxford, 2005), 202, 210–11, 216–21; Peter Crooks (ed.), Government, war and society in medieval Ireland (Dublin, 2008), 321–2.
9 Doris Edel, The Celtic West and Europe (Dublin, 2001), 81 (quote).
10 David Dickson, Dublin (London, 2014), 5–10; Brendan Smith (ed.), Cambridge history of Ireland, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 2018), chapter 4.
11 Peter Crooks (ed.), Government, war and society in medieval Ireland (Dublin, 2008), 194–214. Norman coins were frequently buried alongside Gaelic heirlooms as family treasures by Gaelic chieftains of the day. A.M.P., ‘Ancient cemetery in Islandmagee’, Ulster journal of archaeology, series 1, vol. 6 (1858), 346–50.
12 Peter Crooks (ed.), Government, war and society in medieval Ireland (Dublin, 2008), 210; Alexander Nicolson, History of Skye (Glasgow, 1930), 9–12, 22–5; N.J. McKie, ‘The McGhies of Balmaghie’, The Gallovidian, vol. 7 no. 26 (summer 1905), 99–103.
13 Peter Crooks (ed.), Government, war and society in medieval Ireland (Dublin, 2008), 169, 173, 177–93, 194–214, 332–7.
14 G.R. Gayre, ‘Some notes upon the Mackays of the Rhinns of Islay with reference to the Mackays of Kintyre, the McGhies of Galloway and the Irish MacGees’ (NLI, Genealogical Office, Ms689).
15 Sean Duffy (ed.), Atlas of Irish history (Derbyshire, 1997), 44, 54; Brendan Smith (ed.), Cambridge history of Ireland, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 2018), chapter 12.
16 John O’Donovan (ed.), Leabhar na gCeart or the Book of Rights (Dublin, 1847), introduction, 139, 141, 143; Brendan Smith (ed.), Cambridge history of Ireland, vol. 1, 117.
17 Paul Kennedy, The rise and fall of the great powers: economic change and military conflict from 1500 to 2000 (London, 1988), 17.
18 Doris Edel, The Celtic West and Europe (Dublin, 2001), 41, 45, 48, 72.
19 Sean O’Riada, Our musical heritage (Portlaoise, 1982), 20.
20 Peter Crooks (ed.), Government, war and society in medieval Ireland (Dublin, 2008), 313–15; Sean Duffy (ed.), Atlas of Irish history (Derbyshire, 1997), 44, 54.
21 Brendan Smith (ed.), Cambridge history of Ireland, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 2018), chapter 12; [Henry Egan Kenny], ‘Trade in medieval Ireland’, in Seamus McManus, The story of the Irish race (Connecticut, 1921), 340–5. W.R. Childs, ‘Irish merchants and seamen in late medieval England’, Irish historical studies, vol. 32 no. 25 (May 2000), 22–43.
22 Michael Richter, Medieval Ireland (2nd ed., Dublin, 2005), quote p. 164.
23 Colm Lennon, Sixteenth-century Ireland (Dublin, 1994), 36–9; David Dickson, Dublin, 23, 26, 52–3.
24 Paul Kennedy, The rise and fall of the great powers: economic change and military conflict from 1500 to 2000 (London, 1988), 4–18, 21. Lawrence James, The rise and fall of the British Empire (London, 1995), 5.
25 Steven G. Ellis, Ireland in the age of the Tudors 1447–1603 (London, 1998), 214, 216; Sean Connolly, Contested island: Ireland 1460–1630 (Oxford, 2007), 93–7; Peter Crooks (ed.), Government, war and society, 298, 317–9.
26 Ciaran Brady, Shane O’Neill (Dundalk, 1997).
